Global audiences all set for wedding of the year as Harry marries Markle

Windsor Castle in the United Kingdom will this Saturday be waking up to one of the biggest social events of this decade. The flowers will have been delivered, the guests will be at their places dressed in finery, the security men will be standing at attention, the church organ will play the wedding march, the priest will be at the altar and Ms Meghan Markle will walk down the aisle to start a new life as the bride of Prince Henry Charles Albert David, affectionately known as just Prince Harry.

It has been sold to the world as a fairy tale and the world cannot get enough, lapping up any juicy morsel of news and information about the wedding. And why not? British pageantry has always been a showstopper.

SNOBBISHNESS

There is a reason that the British press, and by extension, the world, were enthralled with Princess Diana. She was the princess that made the monarchy appear less stuffy and more accessible. Diana — with her deeply troubled marriage to Prince Charles, her admission of loneliness and her affair with her bodyguard — cut a figure that ordinary people could relate to; they felt they knew her, that they were her and therefore loved her. People feel the same way towards Meghan, who as a divorced, mixed-race, American actress is as far away from the stuffy snobbishness of British royalty as you can expect.

And we have had access to Meghan, or rather, to the actress that she has spent a big portion of her career playing — Rachel Zane, the paralegal in the law drama, Suits. We were there when Zane fell in love with her dashing co-star, Michael Ross. We cheered her on when she got into law school. We watched her navigate the mine-field that is office politics and get her fingers burned; the scene where Louis Litt fires Rachael after wrongly accusing her of selling company secrets to competitors made a few of us cry. And, finally, we watched her bid the show goodbye with a wedding to Ross. She now enters the next stage of her life via another wedding; to a real-life prince this time, all prim and proper. This is not to say that there has not been drama.

Her family has become a favourite of British tabloids with their penchant for giving interviews that expose rifts in the Markle family.

STRANGERS

Meghan’s half-sister, Samantha Grant, complained about not being invited to the wedding, saying that the couple had chosen to share their day with “complete strangers” rather than family. Ms Grant is said to be in the process of writing a book called The Diary of Princess Pushy’s Sister, which has been touted as an explosive expose which will include details of their home life and never before seen pictures.

Her father, Thomas Markle, who also worked in Hollywood, was slated to walk her down the aisle today but he has been hospitalised with a heart condition. Prince Charles will do the honours instead.

And her ex, film producer Trevor Engleson recently sold the TV rights to a show about a man whose wife leaves him for a prince. They were married between 2011 and 2013 and divorced due to “irreconcilable differences”.

Meghan is closest to her mother, Doria Ragland, a yoga instructor and social worker. She will play a significant part in the wedding, including driving with Meghan to the chapel for the ceremony.

SH1 MILLION

The royal wedding is expected to attract over 100,000 people to the historic countryside town of Windsor where the couple will get married. They will line the streets to take photos of the newly-weds who will take a 25 minute procession in an open carriage through the town before going back to the castle.

Across the world, millions more will watch the goings on from the comfort of their living rooms as the event will be broadcasted live on TV. In Kenya, several establishments have organised viewing parties for the wedding, most famously the Windsor Golf Hotel and Country Club who will be charging couples Sh1 million to attend an exclusive viewing of the wedding. By yesterday, there were reports that the event had been sold out.

The British High Commissioner will also host a party at his residence in Nairobi.

TOURISM

But even as this happens, there is a growing disenchantment with the monarchy in Britain. Many historians say that while many British citizens still like the queen, the popularity of the monarchy as an institution is waning and could be under serious threat. Those disgruntled by the monarchy see it as an outdated institution which is a drain on public funds, often depicting the royals as scroungers who have contributed to the perception of Britain by outsiders as snobbish and class-obsessed.

Majority (76 per cent according to Ipsos) however would want the monarchy to live on. While the monarchy is expensive to sustain, it earns Britain millions of Euros in tourism revenue every year, easily evidenced by the crowds that gather at Buckingham Palace to watch the changing of the guard every day. British pageantry is clearly not going anywhere any time soon.